Qi Jiguang's march was not slow, but it could not be said to be very fast. It was only the speed of ordinary infantry of the Ming army.
But this was not because Qi Jiajun was slacking off, but because Qi Jiguang brought the car camp with him to this battle.
Let’s not talk about the chariots of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but only the Chariot Camp of the Dynasty, which seems to be traced back to Zeng Xian at the earliest.
After Zeng Mian's death, the chariot camp tactics were formally proposed and practiced for the second time. It came from the hands of Yu Dayou, who was transferred to Shanxi at that time. Yu Dayou made many improvements to the chariot camp and improved many details. .
Yu Long and Qi Hu kill people like dirt. Yu Dayou was transferred from northern Xinjiang, and Qi Jiguang was transferred to the north again, and they unanimously set their sights on Cheying.
Personal personality has a great influence on a general's combat style. For example, Ma Fang has a strong personality, so the enemy's cavalry is strong, the more he has to "use cavalry to control cavalry". You can do it, I can do it, and I can even be better than you. .
But Qi Jiguang is different. It can be seen from his style of being an official and a person that he is a person who can assess the situation and does not compete with the general environment or wind. He prefers to adapt to local conditions and find ways to solve problems based on existing conditions. .
What are the existing conditions? Regarding the Japanese pirates, he emphasized the role of small-scale elite soldiers and created the Yuanyang Formation. From then on, he was invincible and invincible.
It is much more complicated against Mongolia, because the Mongols' innate advantage in cavalry is too huge. No matter how you look at it, the Ming Dynasty can only focus on defense first, and then have the opportunity to focus on offense.
If we want to make an analogy between Mongolia and Daming, it is as if Mongolia is a lightweight boxer with high agility, while Daming is a heavyweight boxer with poor agility.
Theoretically speaking, Ming Dynasty can withstand a hundred punches from Mongolia without falling, and as long as he hits Mongolia with one punch, he can beat Mongolia until he can't breathe for ten years.
But the problem is that in fact, Mongolia's flexibility and strength have seriously surpassed the standard, comparable to cheat players. Daming has taken a hundred punches, but he just can't hit the same punch as others.
Daming's physical quality is there, even if Qi Jiguang is your coach, he won't be able to reshape you and strengthen your weaknesses. We can only find ways to continue to strengthen our advantages and strive to make Ming Dynasty also appear as a supermodel in some aspect. For example, if Daming is given a set of heavy armor with spikes, no matter how flexible he is, the Mongolians will not dare to punch easily.
Therefore, there is the matter of overhauling border defenses and building thousands of hollow enemy towers.
But just like a boxing match, if you want to win, not only do you have to stand still, you also have to knock someone down. Therefore, Qi Jiguang has been thinking about how to defeat the cavalry.
Gao Pragmatic had communicated with him privately many times over the years, and he proposed a tactical idea called "Hollow Phalanx" to him.
Qi Jiguang has long known that Gao Pragmatic's mind will often come up with some seemingly nonsense, but actually brilliant ideas, and he always makes a conclusion after carefully examining his proposals.
So Qi Jiguang spent more than two years testing the practicality of this "hollow square array" tactic. In the end, he came to the following conclusions:
First of all, this tactic is only suitable for elite troops who are not afraid of death. This troop must have strict military discipline that uses simple bayonets and smoothbore rifles and does not waver in the face of cavalry charges. Otherwise, it will look a little thin with two weapons. When it comes to fighting against cavalry in three lines, the psychological pressure alone can cause the average army to collapse.
Secondly, this tactic has very high requirements for firepower. To put it in a more pragmatic way, it has very high requirements for the "volume of bombs dropped per unit". Otherwise, if there is not enough firepower, the soldiers in the hollow square formation will not collapse because of fear of rushing into the formation. , and cannot cause enough damage to the enemy, thus making them fearful, timid, and afraid to fight.
Finally, this tactic requires you to be on the side with the artillery advantage. Otherwise, if the opponent has the artillery advantage, after several rounds of shelling, the hollow square formation that is passively beaten will be meaningless. Of course, this doesn't seem to be a big problem. Can the Mongols still gain an artillery advantage? Are you kidding me? It would have been the same situation as when the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty was founding and it was sweeping the world.
Are there any elite soldiers? Yes, but Qi Jiguang has trained for so many years, and the elite soldiers he has basically trained are some of the elites from Jiliao, Xuanda, Shaanxi and other towns. And since Qi Jiguang can only control them during the training period, will they appear soon after returning to the town? Corruption and deterioration, no one can guarantee this.
So in the end, it is still difficult to say how many soldiers can use this hollow square formation tactic. Qi Jiguang only dared to say that the Qi family army he personally led was capable of completing the hollow square formation and deploying it well.
As for the issue of firepower, since the launch of the Longqing Type II Firearm, the improvement in firepower intensity has been obvious. Especially since the firearms produced by Jinghua are of high quality and properly maintained, there is basically no need to worry about explosions and other phenomena within the safe use period. So barely enough.
However, since the hollow square formation requires a bayonet, it is used to support the n upside down on the ground when facing the cavalry charging into the formation. The bayonet tip is tilted forward to form a bayonet forest to intimidate the opponent's horses.
This needs a little explanation: Horses are very smart creatures. They will subconsciously avoid sharp metals like bayonets. Therefore, when the "bayonet forest" appears, the war horses will resist charging towards them.
In the age of cold weapons, the front composed of a firm heavy infantry front could never be easily shaken by heavy cavalry. This was the conclusion of later generations. Not to mention Archer Jones's Western Art of War and the like, in fact even the Mongolian cavalry will form a shield formation for defense in desperate situations. For details, see the Battle of Ain Jaru. Of course, there is a premise for this, " "Steadfast heavy infantry" are definitely not the guards soldiers who are like the beggars gathered in the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, Qi Jiguang has been waiting for Gao Pragmatic to come up with the bayonet he proposed ten years ago, as well as the new gun that can be used with the bayonet, because only with these two weapons, the hollow square array will not be an empty talk.
But Qi Jiguang could not wait idle, so he began to think about the reasonable ideas of how to apply the "hollow square array" tactic without bayonets.
As a result, an improved version of the car camp appeared.
"In the past, the enemy's cavalry clashed with tens of thousands, and the force was overwhelming. Our army's formation was not yet determined, and we were constantly trying to break through, taking advantage of the situation to ravage until no one was left alive. And the enemy wanted to fight, but our army had to fight. The enemy didn't want to fight, so I just watched with my eyes. . Every time the power is on the other side, the enemy often changes to the main force. Our army is afraid of weakness, has a strong spirit, and cannot control the power." Qi Jiguang's Army Training Record Volume 6 Chaoying Explanation 1.
"The enemy wants to fight, but our army has to fight. The enemy doesn't want to fight. I can only watch with my eyes." This sentence perfectly presents the most embarrassing part of the Ming Dynasty when facing the Mongolian cavalry.
Qi Jiguang's main consideration in organizing and training the chariot camp was that the battlefield environment in the north was very unfavorable for the Ming army. In particular, the vast desert northern battlefield was suitable for large-scale motorized horse battles. The Ming Dynasty, a farming society, was not good at riding and shooting. The formations were far inferior to those of the Mongols. Although the Ming Dynasty had a large number of infantry available, its mobility was too poor, and it was far inferior to the Mongols' swift movement that came and went like the wind.
This is very similar to what the Japanese pirates encountered during their campaigns in the south. The Japanese pirates also used boats on the sea to maneuver quickly, leaving the slow Ming Dynasty infantry unable to resist and having nowhere to defend themselves. They were often beaten to death by the high-speed maneuvering Japanese pirates. .
But unlike the Japanese pirates in the south, who fought in small groups without any structure and like stragglers, the Mongolian army was an elite force of a large group with clever tactics, which was far beyond the reach of the Japanese pirates who fought indiscriminately.
The Qi family army organized and trained by Qi Jiguang in the south had already set up camps, which could effectively prevent Japanese pirates from attacking the camps, but in the north they were unable to stop large-scale horse warfare assaults. The established camp formation is the basis for the Qi family's army to fight and defend. Once the base camp is kicked, there will be no chance of winning the battle.
In order to cope with this severe battlefield situation, Qi Jiguang referred to the combat experience and resources of the northern frontier army, and based on the highly pragmatic "unit bomb delivery" idea as the core, he added the rules of the original Qi's army's established camp formations to compile a new concept The car camp is here to correspond.
Note: In the military books written by Qi Jiguang, the most mentioned ones are the chariot camp and the transport camp. It can be seen that Qi Jiguang attached great importance to the tactical application of the chariot camp, which was planned to be used as the main force of horse, infantry and other units in the field battle. Strong support backing. In other words, Cheying cannot guarantee that its side will "win", but it can guarantee that its side will "not be defeated".
Generally speaking, the vehicle camp is combined with the main combat battalions such as horse and infantry to form a mixed camp, with the vehicle camp as the core of the camp's combat and defense.
However, the car camp itself is designed to be an offensive and defensive unit. An independent car contains two teams of regular troops and surprise troops, as well as two powerful Jinghua imitation French cannons as fire support backing, which is sufficient in terms of combat capabilities. Tactically independent combat missions.
At the same time, depending on the mission, small main combat units such as horses and troops can be flexibly added as additional offensive and defensive equipment for the vehicle camp.
In the past, the car companies during the Zeng Mian and Yu Dayou periods were relatively biased towards heavy-duty and large-scale "cars". One type was the sidecar, which was equipped with a guard plate on the left or right side of the vehicle. It was called If it is a side carriage with guards on both sides, it is called a chariot.
After Qi Jiguang created the car camp, he felt that the sidecars were too bulky and bulky. Although they were good for escort and defense, their maneuverability was seriously insufficient, which was lacking in the use of tactics. In order to make up for this shortcoming, Qi Jiguang built a car camp among the old-fashioned cars. In addition, a light vehicle camp was also established.
This newly made light vehicle is useful for traveling far away and passing through dangerous passes. It is sometimes used. There are 216 vehicles in each battalion, 54 vehicles per side, and one person for each vehicle, namely the captain and helmsman, namely the fireman. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth are all gunners, the seventh are all archers, the ninth and tenth are all wolf shooters, this is a team.
But even for a light vehicle battalion, this is not the era of internal combustion engines after all. There is no engine available, so the traveling speed can only be maintained as fast as ordinary infantry.
However, Qi Jiguang is not worried about this problem. He has two purposes in this battle. One is to complete the instructions issued by Gao Pragmatic through the emperor's hand and destabilize the Chahar Department. If Li Chengliang and his son can complete it smoothly, the Taining Department and Duo Department will be defeated. The strength of the Yan tribe will be greatly damaged, and Qi Jiguang only needs to block the time to let Chang Ang know about the defeat of Su Bahai and Dong Hu. It is hard to say whether he dares to defend Daning.
If he didn't dare, he would have no choice but to run away, and if he left, he would go to Tumen to cry. Then Ji Liao's mission would be completed, and they must have seriously disrupted Tumen's plans.
It would be better if Chang'ang still dared to defend Daning. Qi Jiguang was just testing the power and effectiveness of the car camp in Saibei.
